


Narcissistic Cannibal

by succubusybody



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dark, Breaking and Entering, Choking, Darkfic, Emotional Manipulation, Eventual Smut, F/M, Infidelity, Invasion of Privacy, Isolation, Kaydel cheats on poe, Kidnapping, Mind fuckery, Minor Violence, NO CANNIBALISM!!!, Narcissism, Non-Consensual Drug Use, Non-Consensual Somnophilia, Non-Consensual Voyeurism, Obsession, Possessive Behavior, Possessive Kylo Ren, Sexual Deviancy, Stalking, Toxic friendship, Unhealthy Relationships, asshole cops are not helpful, based on a korn song, creepy gifts, despite the title there is no cannibalism in this fic, panty stealing, perv ben solo, unhealthy boundaries
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-15
Updated: 2019-03-05
Packaged: 2019-08-23 20:55:07
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 7,296
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16626284
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/succubusybody/pseuds/succubusybody
Summary: Rey is a narcissist with a knack for burning bridges. Ben is obsessive at best and tired of waiting around the edges of her circle, hoping to be noticed. When she starts to lose all of her "friends," he makes his move.





	1. Don't wanna be sly and defile you

**Author's Note:**

> This is based on a prompt that a lovely anon sent me on my [tumblr](https://succubusybody.tumblr.com/)! I hope you like it, anon!!!

“No. It’s my party, and I say you can’t come in.”

Kaydel’s all puffed up in a way that Rey has never seen before, one skinny arm gripping the door frame to barricade her out. Weird, but whatever. She’s just acting out again. She likes to do that every once in a while to make herself feel important. It’s annoying, but she’s pretty sure that she’ll come around - she usually does.

“If you don’t want to let me in, why did you even invite me?” She crosses her arms over her chest, brows furrowed and irritation clear. It’s cold. And she’s painfully sober. And Kaydel is being a total bitch.

“ _Invite_ you?” Her head bobs when she speaks, and she scoffs, crossing her arms over her chest, too, and widening her stance. “ _Invite you_? Nobody ever invites you anywhere, Rey. You just _show up_ , and nobody’s had the guts to tell you to get lost until now.”

Huh. Well that’s certainly news to her. She tries to laugh it off. “What are you talking about?”

She looks like she’s about to pop. Poe, her boyfriend, floats up to the door and wraps an arm around her waist, looking more than a little confused. “Hey, babe. Everything okay?”

His attempt to calm her didn’t work. She barely even seems to notice he’s there, still bristling in Rey’s direction.

“I’m _talking_ about how you’re the most selfish person I fucking know! You treat everyone around you like shit! You only ever talk about yourself, but you’re such a raging fucking _bitch_ that everyone’s too scared to do anything about it!”

Rey laughs again, but it’s hollow this time. She can feel her cheeks burning. “That’s not true. You’re being mean.”

“I’m being mean? Last month you told Rose her haircut looked like shit!”

“Nobody else was going to! I’m the only one that cared enough to be honest with her!”

Kaydel’s eyes practically bug out of her head. “She cried for _hours_ , Rey!”

“And then she got it fixed, and it looks _way_ better! You’re all fucking welcome!”

She watches the blonde stand there, shaking her head, and it makes her feel embarrassed. She fucking hates this. They might not have been _friends_ , necessarily, but this still feels like a betrayal. 

Honestly? Fuck Kaydel. She doesn’t need her. She’s got other friends.

“So I’m a shitty person? At least I didn’t cheat on my boyfriend while he was abroad with half the guys in Kappa Sig.”

It makes her feel a lot better to see the panic cross Kaydel’s face and the confusion, then anger that clouds Poe’s. But whatever. Shitty people don’t have to keep secrets, right? She’d been doing Kaydel a favor by keeping her mouth shut, and she doesn’t feel like doing that favor anymore.

The door slams right in her face. Rey stands there for a moment, rejected and angry, before collecting all her scattered pieces and turning away from the door.

When she turns around, she practically runs into him. She isn’t sure who he is, at first: tall with a broad chest. Stumbling back, she scowls up at an unfamiliar face. 

He smiles. She’s already pissed off and just wants him out of her way. Briefly, she considers kicking him in the shins, but she doubts it would help.

“I couldn’t help but overhear, sorry. She was so rude, to treat you that way.” His voice is deep, and she can’t quite remember if she’s heard it before. It’s not important either way. She stares blankly and waits for him to move.

“I’m Ben,” he offers. She keeps staring. “We had an art class together freshman year.”

Ah. Right. She thinks she can remember him, just barely - they’d never interacted, but he was always there during class, lurking in the peripherals of her memories. Maybe he critiqued something of hers, once. He probably said it was great. She doesn’t remember ever seeing any work of his.

He looks like he’s waiting for something from her, so she just raises her eyebrows. “Okay? And?” 

She really, really wishes he would get the hell out of her way so they could end this weird, bumbling encounter and move on, but he doesn’t seem to get the point. 

“Well, I was just wondering…” he stuffs his hands into his pockets, and she wouldn’t have been surprised to see him kick the ground a little bit. She can understand it - she’s way, _way_ out of his league, so she’d make herself nervous, too, in his situation - but she really wants him to spit it out. 

“... uh, would you want to get a drink some time?”

Rey purses her lips, giving him a quick once-over. He’s tall, and probably pretty strong, and if she remembers right, he had short hair and a clean-shaven, baby-faced look freshman year… the long hair and the scruff definitely help. A little. She guesses. But he’s still weird looking, and she can do better.

“No. Anyway, can you move? I need to get going, I have shit to do tonight.”

He frowns, but he steps aside. She rolls her eyes and brushes past, pulling her phone out of her pocket and dialing Rose. She can count on Rose. Always. Rose never disappoints her.

“Hey, babe!” She smooths her hair and tries to sound cheery, like she didn’t just get chewed out by an ex-friend. Or whatever she and Kaydel are now. “What are you up to? Is Finn there?”

She half-listens as Rose babbles excitedly about something they did, or something they’re doing, or something they’re going to do. She doesn’t really pay too much attention. The details don’t matter. She turns to look back over her shoulder to see that Ben guy still standing there, watching her walk away. 

Her nose wrinkles. Creep. 

“Cool! Well tell him to go home, because I’m coming over. See you soon! Love you!” 

She hangs up before Rose can protest, slipping her phone back into her coat as she reaches her car. When she looks back again, he’s gone.


	2. Desecrate my mind and rely on you

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> more bitchy rey lol my fave

_1 new email._

Anything sounds better than working on her ethics and economics paper, which she’s been beating her head against the wall trying to write for the past three hours.

Rey expected another holiday offer, or maybe an email from Victoria’s Secret letting her know that they were having another huge panty sale. Instead, study-weary eyes are met with a long message filled with nothing but… text? It takes her a moment to focus, glancing briefly at the subject line: _A poem for an angel_. 

Her nose wrinkles at the tackiness of it all, skimming through briefly. There’s some naughty lines about making love, some poorly made rhymes, and the whole thing reeks of middle school. 

A poem? Please. It would have to be fucking Shakespearean to be impressive, and this is decidedly not.

With a shake of the head, she minimizes the window and tries to focus on her paper once more. She doesn’t get very far before her computer chimes again, the same notification popping up in the corner of her screen: _1 new email_.

Still hoping for some sort of coupon or deal or at least something interesting, she pulls it up. It’s not a coupon or a deal or anything interesting. _You didn’t like it? :(_ For whatever reason, the frown really puts her in a bad mood. Quickly, she glances at the sender: bsolo. Nobody she knows, but it’s a university email. Rolling her eyes, she minimizes the window once again and takes a sip of her latte.

_1 new email._

She’s about to lose her shit in the middle of the coffee shop.

Setting the cardboard cup down with a frustrated huff, she opens the email once again. If it’s from the same bsolo, she might actually kill him. A stranger interrupting her personal time… unthinkable.

_You look really nice in that sweater :)_

True, but creepy. Her head snaps up, eyes narrowed and lips pursed bitterly as she scans the cafe. She almost misses him - though she doesn’t know how, because he’s huge even when he’s folded into his chair like he’s not used to being so big quite yet - but his waving grabs her attention: Ben from the other day.

Ew.

There’s no way he didn’t see her notice him, but she pretends she didn’t, anyway. God forbid she smile at him and he thinks it’s alright to ask her on another date.

As if on cue, the other chair at her small table scoots back with a loud scrape. Someone settles into it, and because she has a very good idea of who that someone might be, she doesn’t look up. Part of her hopes that if she ignores him, he’ll go away. A bigger part of her knows that’s not true.

What makes things worse is that he’s just _almost_ silent. He doesn’t say anything, but she can hear every time he shifts in his seat, every time he messes with his hair, every impatient sniff.

So, really, she’s proud to make it as long as she does.

“ _What_?” It’s snappy, and she punctuates it with a glare. He looks startled - for a second, she wonders if he genuinely doesn’t know how annoying he is, forcing himself into her life like this, but in the end it doesn’t matter. If he doesn’t know, he’s about to learn.

Ben’s mouth just gapes, his dark brown eyes looking deflated. She can see them shift back to sappy as he shakes the rejection off.

He’s resilient. Insistent. If he weren’t such a loser, she thinks, that would be attractive.

“I just, uh, I know you like to come here. To do your work. Sometimes.” His cheeks start to get a bit pink, and his gaze drops away. If she’s sure of one thing, she’s sure he’s a virgin. Rey doesn’t answer and grabs her phone instead.

**TO: ROSIE POSIE**   
_Oh my god you know that guy I told you about? He’s at my coffee shop and wrote me a poem what a weirdo lmfao_

She glances up to see him pushing his coffee cup back and forth between his hands, still not looking at her, still blushing just enough to notice. Pitiful. Her phone buzzes in her hand.

**FROM: ROSIE POSIE**   
_Wow, another guy willing to worship the ground you walk on. What a hard life you live._

Oh… hm. Auburn brows pull together as she squints at the text, worrying her lower lip between her teeth. She has to be reading that wrong, right? There’s no way that one of her best friends is being such a total bitch. Unless Kaydel got to her.

_Kaydel_. Rey scowls. She fucking would, just to be spiteful.

“Are your friends being mean to you again?” His voice startles her, and she cycles through emotions quickly: alarmed to annoyed to uncomfortably vulnerable. He knows too much. He’s seeing her in a way that she doesn’t want him - or anyone - to see her: weak.

Especially if her weakness is the reason he’s got that hopeful look in his eyes, like he’s got a chance or something. Like he pities her.

She doesn’t anyone’s pity, but definitely not _his_. She’s fine. He reaches out for her and she jerks back like he’s poisonous and ready to strike.

She doesn’t need his pity, and she doesn’t want it, either.

“That’s none of your fucking business.” Rey isn’t done with her paper, but it doesn’t matter. She’ll finish it at home, or, God forbid, the library. Not here. Slamming her laptop shut, she chugs the rest of her drink, shoving her computer and papers haphazardly into her bag.

Ben stands, too, knocking his chair backwards in his haste. “I’m sorry, I just-”

“You just _what_?” Her voice is raised, and people are looking, but she’s too embarrassed to care. Things have gotten out of hand: her friends won’t talk to her, this guy won’t fuck off, and she broke one of her nails trying to get the hell out of here.

His hands fidget by his sides, and she can tell she’s made him nervous, but she’s on the verge of tears and too upset to care about some rando’s feelings. She hadn’t asked him to come here, after all. It’s not her fault.

“I like you, Rey.”

She can’t help herself: she rolls her eyes. She hasn’t _liked_ someone since the third fucking grade. “Well…” she’s lost for words as she shoulders her bag, pushing her hand through her hair. “Look, just fuck off, okay?”

Before he has time to give her that kicked-puppy look again, she gets the hell out of there.


	3. I just wanna break this crown

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so my [tumblr](succubusybody.tumblr.com) has been marked as explicit by the staff and i can't undo it... i'll keep it up but i think i'm migrating to [twitter](https://twitter.com/succubusybody), at least until the issue is resolved.
> 
> if it's resolved.
> 
> anyway, in this chapter: lovesick creep intensifies

The crickets are chirping by the time she gets home from the library. No street lights in this neighborhood, but the moonlight is plenty bright to guide her from the driveway and up the steps of her porch. Rey hardly pays attention, absorbed in her phone screen as she scrolls through Instagram; it isn’t until she reaches out for the door handle, like always, and misses that she looks up.

The fucking door is cracked open. Not enough to notice from the street, but it’s open. She knows damn well that she didn’t leave it that way. Flattening her palm against the door, she pushes until it swings open.

All the lights are off. She can’t see anyone moving, but she can’t see much. 

“Hello?” Her voice shakes as she calls out, ears straining into the night trying to hear signs of an intruder… but there’s nothing.

She’s seen way too many horror movies to go exploring on her own. Backing away from the door and down the steps, she gets back into her car and calls the police.

“911, what’s your emergency?” The dispatcher’s voice is calm, and she tries to match that as she locks the car doors, craning around to check the back seat. Better safe than sorry, wasn’t it? She turns back to the house and narrows her eyes at the open door.

“Hi, I live at 67 Blair Avenue?” Her voice shakes and she scowls at the tremble. Slowly, she forces herself to take a breath. “I think someone is in my house.”

The man asks her a few more questions, maybe to kill the time and keep her on the line as the police start on their way. She’s impressed - they arrive in about ten minutes, but she figures that’s the benefit of living in a college town rather than a big city. Not much else for them to do.

Once the house is cleared, they come back out to where she’s giving her statement and tell her that the house is clear. 

“No sign of forced entry,” the officer in charge explains to her. He’s old enough to be her father, and he seems… bored. Disinterested. “Are you sure it wasn’t maintenance? Or your landlord?”

She feels herself bristle defensively. “My _landlord_? Like she’s going to leave the door wide open so God-knows-fucking-who can come ransack the place?” The officer raises an eyebrow at her, but once she’s started down a path, it’s hard for her to stop. “Yeah, that must have been it. Great detecting work, detective.”

He stares at her for a long moment, and she’d be embarrassed if she wasn’t so royally pissed off. Her _landlord_. Right. Rey frowns right back until he hands her a business card.

“Call me if anything else happens, or if you need to report anything stolen.” She swipes the sturdy piece of paper from him and stomps back up the deck, not even waiting for him to say good night before she slams the front door behind her. Officer Armitage Hux, she reads. 

Asshole.

Tossing the piece of paper, she makes sure to lock her door behind her. They might not think anything serious happened here, but she doesn’t just want to leave the door hanging open for whoever did this to come back. If they planned to come back, anyway… maybe it was just a robbery. Checking to see if anything was stolen is probably a good idea.

It takes her about five steps into the house she rents to realize something’s wrong. She doesn’t even have to turn on the lights: she doesn’t own a vanilla-scented perfume.

But, somehow, her entire fucking house is filled with that smell. Vanilla with maybe a little bit of brown sugar. And it’s everywhere. Rey paces to the living room, flipping on the lights - everything looks normal, and nothing seems moved.

She walks quickly through the kitchen and the hallway and finds not a thing out of place, though the scent seems to grow stronger with every step she takes.

By the time she’s standing outside her bedroom door, it’s so thick that her eyes are watering. 

Rey takes a deep breath and opens the door.

The smell is overpowering, but she walks into the room, anyway; she finds her underwear drawer open and her stomach twists. Maybe she’d left it that way. Had she? The morning had been so rushed that she couldn’t quite remember. 

Halfway across the room to shut the drawer, she sees a flash of blue and orange carefully placed in her sheets, messy like she always left them.

Swallowing the lump in her throat, she stops and changes direction. Something new in her bed is probably more important than an open drawer, anyway.

It’s a bottle: Outremer Vanilla. Brand new. She knows for a fact that she didn’t buy that.

She storms out of the room, heading straight for the business card she’d dropped in the key bowl. Her phone is at the ready, and she cradles it between her ear and her shoulder as it rings, taking the opportunity to open some windows.

“Officer Hux.” He sounds sleep when he answers the phone. She tries not to roll her eyes.

“It’s Rey Niima. You were here earlier?” She waits for some form of recognition, but only gets a grunt. It’ll have to do. She barrels onward. “There’s _perfume_ in my house.”

A long pause. He slurps coffee on the other end of the line. She clenches her phone so hard her knuckles turn white, but does her best to keep it under control.

“Yes, miss,” he says finally. “We noticed.”

“But it’s not _mine_!”

There’s another lengthy pause and she thinks she might scream. She wants to talk to his supervisor. She might do just that in the morning. 

“Well, miss, if you’d like me to send an officer all the way out there to look at a perfume bottle, I can certainly do that. Or you can come into the station tomorrow. Your choice.”

She frowns, using a magazine to wave some of the vanilla air outside. Why is he writing this off? She’s _clearly_ not safe if someone broke in to leave her… gifts. Not to mention there’s at least a whole second bottle floating in the air right now.

And if she goes into the station tomorrow, she can speak with his boss about how completely unhelpful and unprofessional he’s been throughout this trying time.

“I’ll see you in the morning, then.” Rey slams the magazine down on the counter and hangs up, tossing her phone down, too. She doesn’t feel safe in her own home and he’s going to treat her like shit?

Total. Fucking. Asshole. 

From across the room, as she’s closing the window, she hears her phone buzz again. Somebody better be fucking apologizing to her, whether it’s Rose, Kaydel, or Officer Fuckface - after the day she’s had, she needs a friend and needs one badly. 

The notification, though, came from her email. She can see the subject line (ice cream?) and the sender (bsolo), and that’s about it. 

It’s stupid to be nervous about this, she decides. It’s just a fucking email from a pathetic loser with a crush. Before she can talk herself out of it, she swipes to open the message.

_What’s your favorite flavor of ice cream?_

_Mine’s vanilla._


	4. But it's hard when I'm so run down

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> some bitchy rey bullying creepy ben as a quick lil warm up to get back into the swing of writing!!!!

It’s official, she decides: cops are fucking useless. It would have been a funny tweet, but she doesn’t want to risk the chance that Supreme Perv Ben Solo is keeping tabs on her social media and knows that the police don’t care she was the victim of a crime.

Rey can still remember the look on Officer Hux’s weird, pointy face. _”So what? Your ex boyfriend left you perfume and forgot to close the door? We have real crimes to solve here, kid. Change the locks.”_ Apparently a poem and a question about ice cream aren’t grounds for a restraining order. 

Maybe she’ll turn up dead. Then he’ll be real fucking sorry. At least the receptionist had looked a little sympathetic.

With no classes today and nothing to do, she’s tempted to go home, but that doesn’t feel… safe. Phone in hand, she frowns down at the screen, fingers hovering just above the keypad. Who could she text? No one’s wanted to hang out with her in days, and she doubts they’ll let her crash with them. 

Maybe she’ll go to the library or something. Or go to the gym. Go get something to eat… anything to stay busy.

With a sigh, she pockets her phone and crosses her arms over her chest as she starts to head down the sidewalk. 

“Rey!”

She damn near jumps out of her skin. The deep tone of the voice makes her skin prickle and the hairs on her arms stand on end.

And sure enough, there he is, leaning over to shout out of the passenger side window of his shitty old car. She snorts. Beat up thing looks like he bought it at one of those shady cash-for-cars places. It’s got duct tape on it. Somehow, it seems fitting.

“I noticed you’re walking. Do you maybe need a ride somewhere?”

Oh, fuck. She resists the thriller-movie-cliche of looking back towards the police station; she’s at least pretty sure he knows that’s where she’s coming from. If he had half a brain and a good guess, he’d know. 

“I’m walking to my car now, actually.” Sure, it’s in a parking garage a few blocks away, and yeah, the sun’s starting to set, but it’s not that big of a deal. She’d rather deal with the sketchy sunset downtown dwellers than get in a car with _him _.__

__He’s probably got a fucking chloroform-soaked rag tucked under his leg. _Not that he’d have the balls to use it,_ she thinks with a snort._ _

__But if that’s true, why is she nervous?_ _

__She hates that he makes her nervous._ _

__“Well, I just thought… maybe because it was getting kind of late?” Rey rolls her eyes, stuffing her hands into the pockets of her jacket. The sound of his tires rolling on the pavement, like he’s not even touching the gas, is really starting to grate on her nerves._ _

__He wants an answer, and she’s really not sure why she encourages this kind of shit. He wants a reaction, wants her to speak to him… she’s got to cut him off. She isn’t sure if it works on sad little nerds, but it’s definitely worked before. Quit feeding them and they starve._ _

__Rey answers her phone like someone is calling and hopes he gets the point._ _

__The rubber-on-asphalt sound keeps crackling beside her, and she doesn’t dare look, but keeps having her fake conversation. If any of her flaky-ass friends would answer their fucking phones, this would be a lot easier, but she has to take care of shit herself. Can’t count on anybody these days._ _

__“I know you’re not on the phone, Rey.” She pointedly ignores him; there’s no way he’d be able to hear the voice of whoever she was talking to, even if they were really there. He’s too far away. He’s grasping at straws._ _

__Her phone starts ringing. The universe has a shitty sense of humor._ _

__“You don’t have to be so stubborn.” Still not looking at him, she rolls her eyes. _Stubborn_. What a joke. He doesn’t know a damn thing about her, much less whether or not she’s _stubborn_. “C’mon. Why don’t you just get in the car?”_ _

__She stops dead in her tracks, squeezing her phone so tight that her knuckles pale. His brakes squeal to a stop._ _

__“Why don’t I just _get in the car_?” The condescension drips from her voice; she knows she’s snapping, but the adrenaline rush it gives her makes it hard to stop. Her voice shakes as she laughs. “Why don’t you fuck off, creep?”_ _

__His jaw drops just a little bit, and that’s enough to push her to keep going. Obviously she wasn’t harsh enough in the coffee shop, and this makes her feel like she’s in _control_ again._ _

__“Every time I turn around, you’re there! Like a fucking gnat I can’t get rid of!” Eyebrows raised, hands gesturing wildly, she’s sure she looks insane to anyone passing by - but he looks enraptured and half-terrified, and that’s all that matters. “And do you know what, Ben? It’s honestly _pathetic_. I’m not into you. I will _never_ be into you. Grow up, move on and take the hint.”_ _

__Her chest heaves as she waits for him to respond, but the only thing that stretches between them is silence. His eyes drop away from hers, and, very much looking like a kicked puppy, he turns to face the steering wheel._ _

__“I’m sorry you feel that way,” he says, finally, his words quiet and measured._ _

__It’s damn satisfying._ _

__She watches as he rolls the window up and his ugly red Chevrolet Sprint starts to hurtle on down the road. Over the horizon it goes, leaving Rey standing there, unable to catch her breath or make her skin stop crawling._ _

__One thing’s for sure: after this shitshow of a day, she could really use a fucking drink._ _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> you should follow me on [twitter](https://twitter.com/succubusybody) or [tumblr](succubusybody.tumblr.com)!


	5. And you're so cynical

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> happy sports day i guess
> 
> in this chapter ben is masturbating over her while she sleeps which is really gross but I didn't know how to tag it so here we are. i warned ya.

She wakes up to a weird sound.

It’s funny - she doesn’t remember falling asleep. Her head is foggy, like it always is when she gets too drunk on cheap white wine, but she’d only had half the bottle left. Surely two glasses of wine (yes, fairly generous pours, but still) hadn’t gotten her _too_ drunk.

And then, on top of that, she knows having slept on the couch is gonna fuck her neck up real bad. _And_ there’s this weird sound she has to deal with. Rey really, really fucking hopes it’s not something broken… her landlord is nice enough, but the maintenance guy really gives her the creeps. She’s got enough creeps to deal with as it is.

She rubs her eyes with the heels of her palm, groaning as she feels mascara roll together and smear against her cheeks. Goddamnit. Then again, maybe if she looks like shit the maintenance guy will give her a break.

Before all of that, she’ll have to figure out what’s making the noise. Rey sighs and cracks her eyes open.

 _He_ is standing on the other side of the coffee table, a pair of - God, are those her panties? - in one hand and his cock in the other. Her eyes widen and flit up toward his face.

“Please don’t scream.” His voice is barely above a whisper, and it’s more desperate than she’s ever heard it. “If you scream, you’ll ruin it.” 

Even in her hazy-minded stupor, she knows she doesn’t give a fuck about ruining his orgasm, or whatever it was he’s talking about. She shrieks and uses every ounce of willpower she has to tumble off the couch, but he lunges for her as she hits the ground, practically laying across her coffee table. Magazines, pens, coasters and an empty water bottle clatter to the floor; she swats his hand away and wiggles on her back until she’s no longer trapped between the table and the couch. He tries to grab her ankle, just once. She kicks him in the nose.

While he’s busy moaning and cupping his face, she stumbles to her feet. Tries to, really; it’s _hard_. The floor seems to tilt beneath her feet, and she has to use the arm of the couch to pull herself up.

Something’s not right. Even if she’d been drunk enough to pass out, she wouldn’t still be drunk enough that it’s hard to stand up. 

Did he _do_ something to her?

The thought is enough to make her stop staggering toward the kitchen just long enough to see him rolling off the coffee table, awkwardly trying to tug his jeans up with one hand as he waddles towards her. Is he even capable of that? To break in, drug her shit (with drugs he got from who knows where), and somehow know when she finished that bottle of wine?

He’s creepy, but he doesn’t seem like a mastermind. It doesn’t matter, she decides. The cops can figure that out. Besides, he’s getting closer.

Rey skids around the corner, nearly losing her balance in the process, but there it is: her phone sitting just where she’d left it by the now-empty bottle. Good. She doesn’t even need to be on the phone for long, just long enough to dial three numbers and scream.

The other side of the kitchen seems impossibly far away, though. She has to get there first. With a grunt, she pushes herself off the wall, arms outstretched to catch herself on the island -

\- the weight of him sends her tumbling to the floor with an _oof_ , and gravity drags him down on top of her. Jesus _fuck_ , she thinks, coughing when the impact knocks the wind out of her. Was he a linebacker in high school? Or was he just an asshole that didn’t realize how seriously he could have hurt her?

She unfolds one of the arms that had been tucked underneath her in the fall, then the other, planting them on the hardwood to try to drag herself forward. One of his hands slams beside her head, palm-down, boxing her in so that she can’t.

Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck. His knees are on either side of her thighs, and she can feel him grab her hips to flip her over. Rey braces for the worst… but he looks apologetic. 

“I’m really sorry.” Her eyes dart across his features, eyes seemingly filled with regret. “You weren’t supposed to wake up yet.” 

He _did_ drug her. Her eyes drift down to see that his pants are still undone, hanging just beneath his hips. He’s gone soft. Something about him being exposed makes her wish she was more covered up than the oversized t-shirt she wore around the house allowed. At least he can’t see her legs from where he’s straddling her.

“Do you forgive me?” 

Rey’s eyes snap back up to his face, which is riddled with worry. Her brows furrow. _Forgive_ him? For breaking into her home, drugging her, and jacking off to her passed-out body? For doing God-knows-what-else in her home?

She’s got neighbors. It’s a weeknight. Someone is bound to be around, or walking by.

She shrieks.

It doesn’t cross her mind to scream for help, or anything in particular - she just screams as loud as she can. Loud enough to cause a commotion. Loud enough for someone to file a noise complaint, at the very least.

When she cracks an eye open, he’s losing his shit. She can see it in his face: panic, uncertainty. He either didn’t expect this or didn’t plan out what to do when this happened.

Fucking _good_.

He half-assedly clamps a hand down over her mouth with hardly any pressure; she gets rid of him with a rough shake of the head. Jackass. He tries again and she swats his hand away.

It’s like he’s not even trying. Maybe he wants to get caught? She isn’t sure. She doesn’t really care. 

“Please stop!” He’s shouting to be heard through her screaming, and she watches the way his neck strains when he does. “I don’t want to hurt you!” 

She doesn’t give a fuck what he wants, and she doubts he has the balls to do any real damage. Rey keeps screaming and bends her knees, trying to use her legs to push herself out from underneath him.

The next time she looks at him, she’s pretty sure he’s on the brink of tears. Whatever. He’s pathetic.

His hand wraps around her throat, and he can’t even do _that_ right, she thinks. What a joke. He’s squeezing the sides of her throat, sure, but she can still breathe. She opens her eyes to swat his hand away, but he holds firm this time.

And she can see that he’s saying something, more quietly this time, like he doesn’t care if she can hear or not. She keeps screaming, though - until she can’t. The room spins, and her vision starts to get gray around the edges. 

“I’m really sorry, Rey. It wasn’t supposed to be like this.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> follow me on [twitter](twitter.com/succubusybody) or [tumblr](succubusybody.tumblr.com)!


	6. Narcissistic cannibal

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> dodododododooooooo

Rey grunts when she rolls to the side, only to be met with the hard, cool wall. With a frustrated huff, she rolls the other way, curling into the warmth of another’s body. Someone’s fingers tangle in her hair, lazily brushing fingertips against her scalp. She hums her approval and pulls the blankets closer to her chin.

Wait.

She’s scowling before her eyes are even fully open, jolting upright and scooting away to press her back to the wall once more. He’s changed into a soft, stretched out t-shirt and flannel pajama pants. He tries a smile.

“I didn’t mean to wake you,” he explains gently. “You looked so peaceful.”

Her nose wrinkles. She doesn’t stay the night - it’s not her thing - and they didn’t even _fuck_. Jesus. He was content to cuddle her for who knew how long.

She doesn’t like that. It’s _weird_. He’s weird. Her eyes tear away from him to scan the room for a clock. The place looks exactly like every guy’s dorm she’d been in freshman year, all decked out in boring greys and blues, clothes strewn all over the floor, tacky posters taped to the walls, his double bed shoved in one corner and desk shoved in the other. She rolls her eyes (and finds the clock - it’s after 10, she’s late for class). At least it smells nice.

But _fuck_. She really shouldn’t be here. Especially when she doesn’t even know where _here_ is. In as long as she’s been out, they could be in an entirely different city by now and she’d have no idea. That’s bad.

Deep down, she knows she should probably be scared. If she is, she can’t bring herself to own up to it - admitting fear would be admitting she’s in danger, and Rey doesn’t want to think about what that might mean for her. 

“Well, this has just been a grand old time, but I have shit to do today.” She smiles at him with a fake-politeness, her eyes clearly flat and annoyed as she pushes the blankets down to her waist. “Hope you enjoyed playing house. Don’t hold your breath waiting for me to come visit you in prison.”

With that, she swings one of her legs over his hips, then the other. But when she goes to slide off the bed, one of her legs doesn’t get the memo, yanked uselessly behind her.

Ben sighs like he’s disappointed in her and sits up, using both hands to drag her towards him so that her leg isn’t bent at a horrible angle. Situating her between his thighs, he leans over her - and God, she really did not realize how huge he was until right now - and peels the blanket all the way off. 

A cuff is wrapped around her ankle. The soft, fun kind you get at a sex shop, but just the one. She tries to tear open the velcro, but it doesn’t budge. He must have glued it. Some sort of colorful, braided wire loops through the D-ring and is tied to one of the footboard slats.

What the fuck?

“What the _fuck_?” She hurls the question at him like an accusation, and it is: what the fuck is this? What the fuck have you done? What the fuck is wrong with you? Not that she expects him to be able to answer any of those questions, since he has clearly lost his goddamn mind, if he ever even had it to begin with. 

“It’s fishing line,” he offers, like that’s helpful to her at all. “The kind they use for offshore stuff.”

Great. Unless she somehow weighs more than a shark, or a marlin, or whatever the fuck it is that people catch offshore, she probably won’t be able to snap it. Good to know. Just her luck, right? Of course he’d be some kind of bondage MacGyver.

“I don’t give a fuck if it’s fishing line or razor wire, asshole.” Which is not entirely true - she’d prefer fishing line out of the two options. She pulls away, turning on the bed to face him. He looks stunned, the same way that he did in the car. “You’ve really fucked up this time. My friends are gonna notice I’m gone. People are going to come looking for me.”

He blinks twice, and she thinks she’s gotten her point across… but then he bursts into laughter. Real, genuine laughter. Her brows furrow as she watches him, mind racing to figure out what she might have said that’s so funny.

“I’m sorry. I know I shouldn’t laugh.” He’s still smiling, though. It’s pissing her off. She scowls. “Especially not at something so sad.” He pushes out a short breath, like he’s trying to gather some self control, and then he rolls off the bed and heads for the dresser. He snickers under his breath again as he pulls out a sweater and drapes it over the back of his desk chair.

“ _What_?” She’s yelling again, and maybe she’s in no position to be doing something like that - but he is half scared of her, if the way he flinches means anything.

He shrugs in answer, and when he turns around, his brows are crinkled. He looks puzzled, like he’s surprised that she doesn’t know what he’s talking about.

“You don’t have any friends, Rey.” Ouch. That stings. She opens her mouth, then shuts it again, not sure what to say. She can feel the tips of her ears and the high points of her cheeks turning scarlet. “Well, except for me, anyway.” He turns away from her, opening a different drawer in his dresser and looking through pairs of pants. “Though I don’t know if I’d want to use the word friends to describe what we are, so maybe not.”

“I do too have friends,” she argues back, her voice wobbling. 

She should quit. She doesn’t have to prove this to him. Still, she’s counting them out on her fingers, like the number would do anything to impress him. 

“Rose and Kaydel and Jess, and Poe and Finn.” Rey pauses. That doesn’t sound as convincing as she thought it would when she ran through the list in her head. “And lots more.”

Ben just sighs and shakes his head. Rey doesn’t know what that’s supposed to mean. She bristles with embarrassment, biting back the urge to shout: believe me! People like me! People will notice when I’m gone! 

Seemingly unaware of the daggers she’s glaring his way, he strips out of his shirt, then starts to tug his pajama pants down; she looks away, like she hadn’t just seen his entire dick hanging out of his pants the night before. Really, she’d like to pretend she hadn’t.

After some rustling of clothes and a zip, she feels his weight press on the edge of the mattress. When she looks up, he’s staring at her pitifully. Her phone is in his hand.

She snatches it.

“I didn’t want you to have to see this, but I think you need to know.”

He must have taken out her SIM card, or did some other type of tech-geek shit. It’s not that she isn’t getting signal; nothing at all pops up in the corner of the screen where she usually sees how many bars she has. Fuck. She probably should have guessed.

“I texted some of your so-called friends for you,” he explains, huffing impatiently when she doesn’t find what he wants her to immediately.

Rey scowls. “You what?”

“I didn’t want them to worry!” Wow. How thoughtful of him. Even if he seems genuine, she glares until he points at the screen, unable to meet her gaze. “Just look.”

FROM: REY  
Hey babes. I’m gonna go off the grid for a while. I’ve had a lot going on and need some time away to think.

FROM: KAY  
Jesus, Rey, is this because we weren’t dramatic enough about the guy who had a fucking crush on you?

FROM: KAY  
This is just like last semester. You always fucking do this.

FROM: JESS  
Is that what this is about lol? Maybe u should seek professional help ~babe~

FROM: JESS  
Must get exhausting being this far up your own ass

They go on like that for a while, feeding off one another to make her look like some melodramatic cunt. Talking about the boy who cried wolf. Saying maybe she shouldn’t come back.

Nothing from Rose. No piling on, and definitely no defending her, unless it happened after Ben shut her service off. She can’t decide if that makes her just as bad as the rest of them or not. Hot, angry tears well up in the corners of her eyes, and she swipes them away with the back of her hand, scrolling through the messages to reread them over and over again until he pries it away from her.

“I looked through your Instagram.” When she looks up at him, his face is warm. Caring, even, if she’s reading him right. She’s not sure she likes it. “Year after year, the faces all change. No family. Different friend groups. Different boyfriends.”

He isn’t telling her anything she doesn’t know. Rey’s skin prickles hot and defensive as she blinks away the blur of tears to argue with him. Ben beats her to the punch.

“You’ve been abandoned by everyone you’ve ever known, haven’t you?”

Oh.

It’s a step too far; a hit too close to home. No one’s ever thrown that in her face before, but no one’s ever really gotten close enough to notice. 

She starts to cry.

Rey hates crying. Everyone is ugly when they cry - it’s a fact. Even her. Especially her, maybe. She hasn’t done it since she was thirteen - the only thing worse than being ugly is being weak, and when she cries, she’s both.

But he doesn’t seem to mind. He doesn’t roll his eyes or push her away or, like she surely would have, laugh in her face. Instead, he reaches out to pull her to his chest, tucking her head beneath his chin and rubbing her arms as he shushes her. It almost feels nice, if she can forget the bullshit circumstances, like the fact that she’s quite literally tied to his bed.

“I won’t leave you, though.” He pulls back, cupping her jaw to tilt her head in his direction, brushing his thumb gently across her tear-stained cheek. “I’m the only one who’s ever seen you for who you are and still stayed. Who saw the ugly parts and loved you anyway.”

She can see in his eyes that he really thinks it’s true - that he loves her. Ben hesitates for a moment before leaning in to press a nervous, too-soft kiss to her lips.

Rey cries harder.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> follow me on [twitter](twitter.com/succubusybody) or [tumblr](succubusybody.tumblr.com)?


End file.
